Sorflaten's Travels: Preparation for Farm Field School and Nutrition Workshops in French

Preparation for Farm Field School and Nutrition Workshops

Incredible in everyway. That is the best way to describe our week of workshops in Bana. How could one have thought that, working in an environment of total French, we could feel such enthusiasm and see learning in action.

The week before the trip to Bana was necessarily stressful. All materials had to be translated into French, printed, the workbooks bound, the flip chart plans completed, everything organized and packed to fit into and on top of the car. What a team effort. On Saturday, entire IDF staff arrived for work early and at 11pm, amazingly we had most everything done. Here are the workbooks but the process of how they were put together and printed shows how everyone pulled together to accomplish the feat.

Each Conservation Farming and Nutrition workshop participant was to receive one of these manuals to guide them during the workshop and to use in their community outreach in the weeks and months to come. Materials were readied for printing. This was an arduous process. Allan worked for three weeks before we came to the Cameroon, researching and choosing the best of excellent resource materials from the internet on Conservation Farming, He translated the teaching guide into French, making power point teaching graphics and finding suitable pictures from the internet to illustrate each concept. Most illustrations were taken from projects in other African countries where Conservation Farming is well established. Lydia used materials prepared for Nutrition Training workshop while on assignment with IDF November 2011. Fortunate for Lydia, IDF now as internet via telephone hook up. Oussematou says it is magic. Lydia discovered the merits of Google translation into French. Mme Oussematou labored over correcting Englishman’s French for publication, edited the Nutrition manual, writing an introduction and completed the index for ’ Soins nutritionnels pour les personnes vivantes avec le VIH/SIDA’, the Nutrition Manual.

Fortunately for us, on the same floor as IDF is an excellent computer school. The owner and secretary were invaluable, helping us solve computer problems during the day while printing five copies of the FAO 105 page manual ‘ Vivre au mieux avec le VIH-SIDA’, a reference guide for hospital personal, IDF and community volunteers.

Meantime, the IDF staff worked tirelessly to prepare the logistics as Oussematou calls it.
Once one copy of each page was printed, production began. Oussematou manned the photocopy machine and Falimatou did the binding. (Falimatou, now the IDF secretary, graduated from the Single Parent Adolescent Program given by IDF.She has gained such confidence and skill). Amazingly, by 10:30 Saturday night we had 22 Farm Field School Guides and 13 Nutrition Manuals ready for action. Oussematou’s biggest fear was that we would not have electricity to complete the job.

Oussematou Printing

Terance and Falimatou Organizing for Binding

Falimatou Binding

Richard (a volunteer with IDF), Oussematou and Terance Preparing Flip Charts for the Workshops

At 11pm we headed for Sister Rose’s for much deserved barbequed fish, huckleberry, plantain and beverage. Julius ordered ahead of time as they closed at 10:30.